apollodorus's Logbook (25 ascents)

PTPP and I replaced all the old, rotten belay bolts on this fine route. It's a pretty steep, clean, direct and sustained line up the SW face of El Cap. Easier than Excalibur, harder than Son of Heart.

PTPP and I climbed the Mushroom to the first penji (the one that goes left from the pinnacle) and went straight up on Albatross instead. The nailing was more like A4 in a few sections. The routes met up one or two pitches below the big penji right that ends half a pitch below Chickenhead Ledge.

PTPP and I did New Dawn and then Tribal Rite to the summit. There were about seven days of rain and snow storms while we were up there (in JUNE). The wind coming off Clouds Rest and Half Dome was quite cold. We brought so much food and water, we could afford to just sit in our tents and watch parties on the Nose scrambling to gain a few feet whenever the rain stopped. On one pitch, I pulled a fixed head and ripped the next three pieces for a forty-footer. One of the best parts of the route was the top-out haul, which had none of the high-friction drama that caps off most routes.

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An amazingly pristine and natural line, straight up the tallest section of the SW face. Our 13 day ascent included bringing firewood for two nights' barbeques at the Alcove. We replaced most of the old and rotten bolts with shiny new 3/8" x 2" ones. We spent approximately 40 hours just pulling and drilling and driving in bolts. The only old bolts we left were pro bolts mid-pitch and some belay bolts that made no sense because they were right next to cracks. The two belays in the OW leading to the Alcove were rebolted, even though the crack takes big cams, because that seems to be a popular free variation for the Salathe. And speaking of which, the absolute worst part of the route were the few pitches shared with the Salathe. The best part was the Fish Head Crack pitch up and over a big roof (the second in two pitches), leading to an amazing amount of air. Our haul bags hung free, and twisted around each other in the updrafts. I had to go down 150 feet, hanging about forty feet from the wall, and fight the two pigs while swinging around in a high wind. Nice.

This was a pretty nice wall, with less loose rock than I expected. Quite a bit of expando, and lots of hook moves. A pig cratered from P6 with all my Valley Giants, so we had to skip the Leavittator and do an extra pitch on Aurora.

Pass the Pitons Pete and I slayed this monster in ten easy days of waking late and having coffee. We had two Grade VI pigs, a Grade V piglet, and a Grade VII "Blue Whale". We used two static haul lines, with the piglet and blue whale hung below the pigs. We flagged our ledges above the pigs, and hung other loads (sleeping bags, wallflowers, etc.) below with the piglet and blue whale. We took a 5 gallon bucket full of oranges, apples, avocados and grapefruit. The locals told us that from the ground that it looked like a circus, with stuff hung from top to bottom of each pitch. We had 2 #5 Camalots, 2 #7 Valley Giants, 6 #9 Valley Giants and 2 #12 Valley Giants. I crackwalked all the big stuff, running it out 40 feet between pro, so we had more than enough big gear. There are at least five pitches on this route with WIDE cracks; commercial gear need not apply. The free climbing crux was a 5.8 no pro "crack" at the start of P17, which was actually where the corners of two big blocks came together at their edges. The aid crux was P6. The bivy crux is the top of 25, Frosty's Claustrophobic Bivy: perfectly flat floor and roof above, but only 12 inches high. The top of P10 is a large cave with a perfect roof crack; it would make the perfect storm bivy. P24 and P25 can be linked with a 60m rope. You can haul pitches 27 and 28 together from the summit with a 70m rope, or drop down 30m to an off-route ledge and haul 40m to there first. P27 is a traverse across a slab, and would be a nightmare to haul. Hauling P28 from the end of P27 also looked bad. The direct haul is a straight, mostly free-hanging line. The best bivy was at the top of 23, the Round Table. I slept on the ledge itself because my homemade porta was basically destroyed by then.

After topping out on the Excalibur, three Italian climbers topped out on the Salathe right next door. Two days later, I climbed the Snake Dike with Paolo and Andrea, alpine-style. One climber led, then the other two followed tied about 20 feet apart on the same rope. We used an 8.8 mm single. Total time, Happy Isles to Happy Isles, was about eight hours. We approached by going between Mt. Broderick and Liberty Cap; about one mile upstream from the bridge above Emerald Pool, we went left into the gap between the two mastiffs.

This was my first wall climb, in the Fall of 1983. If you have a little experience with aid climbing, and can handle the fairly long bathook pitch off the Second Error ledge, this would be a good first wall. The approach probably makes it far less crowded than the South Face of W.C. or the Leaning Tower.

I did this route in the late summer of 1983. I thought the very first part (getting to the top of a pillar) was the hardest technically. The physical crux came later, as there was no place to get a good hands rest. I mistakenly placed alot of pro, wasting time, and burning myself. I had to hang on a #8 hex about 2/3 of the way up, and then just ran the rest of the crack out unprotected. The OW at the top can be avoided by moving left just below it. The best strategy is to trust the great jams, and leave as little pro as possible to conserve arm strength.